3 days on the water in Halong Bay, Vietnam

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Prepare yourselves, readers. This is a long one. Might want to grab a cup of tea or beverage of choice before settling in to read this one. Or make it a two part experience. I decided to publish it all as one since I tell the boat trip story start to finish. I hope you enjoy it.

When I researched Vietnam, everyone I spoke to said we had to go to Halong Bay. Halong Bay means descending dragon bay in Vietnamese. The area has thousands of the limestone formations that are mini-islands. After doing some research online and seeing the photos, we added it to the itinerary. The pictures online prepared us for the beauty of the area, but being there and being the photographer was fantastic. I felt like I was literally inside a postcard. The pictures will help explain this.

We were picked up by shuttle bus at our hotel at 8:15am. We took the bus about 3 hours (with a stop mid-way) to Halong Bay. The ride was a little bumpy and I tried to sleep through much of the ride. When we got off our bus, we were organized into waiting areas by boat. There were several boats leaving at the same time for two and three day cruises. Ours was to be a three day cruise on a smaller boat with a total of seven passengers, four of them being our party. We took a tender (the shuttle boat we used throughout the trip) from the dock to our boat—a traditional Chinese junk style boat named “Lagoon Explorer”. There were two boats with the same name. In Vietnam, people say “same, same” and it’s kind of catchy. For example, these two boats are same same.” Or after saying I’m from Chicago, a guy points to Mark and says “same, same?”

We met our fellow passengers on board. We were traveling with a young couple from London and a single guy who was also living in Shanghai. Small world reminders at every turn. Our room was the largest on board and had two double beds and a bathroom. All the rooms had bathrooms but from a quick peek, the other rooms were basically beds and bathrooms with little walking around space. The bathroom was very functional. A square with two floor drains, it housed a sink, a toilet and the shower head. The goal of each showering experience was to try not to soak the towels and the toilet paper. Oh and also not to flood the entire cabin. We did quick group rinse offs and didn’t really feel clean until we washed up with non-boat water at our next hotel. It was all part of the experience of boat life.

Our room had a bit more walking around space than the others and it was comfortable—until the air conditioner broke. I’ll get that out of the way first because I don’t want to dwell but I do want to share. It’s what I do, after all. I noticed the air conditioner had begun to drip water just as we were getting ready for bed. It was probably set too low, but the crew had set it, and so we put towels down and just let it drip. However the next day it broke entirely and we had no air conditioning the entire second afternoon/evening. This lead to a miserable, hot and sweaty sleep. Dreams about prison and begging for water ensued. (Dreams may have been influenced by Mark’s stories from the Hanoi prison).Okay, gripe session over. Now I’ll get onto the good stuff.

The first day we started with a beautiful multi-course lunch. The chef on board looked young (teenager young) but he was a very skilled chef. Since we had some non-fish eaters mixed in with fish-eaters there were always meat dishes. I had asked for “kid food” but my request was ignored. I had just hoped for some pasta or plainer meat but the kids survived. Emily ate the prawns, which were huge and delicious. We had crab and fish that were caught from the local fishermen and it was all delicious and tasted fresher than any fish I’ve ever had. There were also many vegetable dishes and interesting shredded salads with lime infused dressings. I loved all the veggies and we were fortunate to find the young couple did not eat vegetables (as in they did not eat them basically at all) so we had plenty of seconds and thirds on all vegetable dishes. We ate all the meals family style and it was a little awkward since we were not all one family and in some cases we all wanted more of a particularly tasty dish—but we got by. The benefit of having my two picky eaters on board was they provided more portions to our dishes and yet they never ate their share of food.

After lunch we went kayaking. I went with Emily and Mark took Nathan. As Emily and I were getting into our boat, Nathan bravely followed Mark off the top deck (not that far but still!) and jumped into the water. Mark was there with Nathan’s life jacket and all went fine but as the nervous Mom I was a little freaked. Just a little. Nobody asked my opinion on this activity. Then we were off in our kayaks. Emily tried to help row, but basically each time we kayaked I wondered why she even had an oar. It was a hindrance and mostly just sat in front of her. She is too small and the oar was huge for her. I took advantage of her inability to help and got some good exercise. We kayaked for about an hour and ended up on a beach for a bit mid-way through our outing. We collected shells, saw all sorts of crabs and swam a bit before heading back to the boat. We saw the sunset while on the water and by the time we returned to the boat it was dark. Mark and I were a little worried about getting back but as it turned out, there are these amazing little night lights called stars that come out when the air is clean and there are no buildings around. We found our way back without trouble. Being on the water at night with these limestone islands jutting out all around us was spectacular.

Dinner the first night was camera worthy. In fact, our guide, Duc encouraged us to get our cameras and we followed his instructions. We had many, many dishes and they were delicious and often presented with very elaborate fruit carvings. We had a tiger made out of a root, an eagle carved from a pumpkin, and some cute birds that we dared Nathan to decapitate by eating the head with a carrot beak. Hopefully, they don’t recycle these carvings. I took a nibble of one as well. After dinner, Nathan tried out night fishing. The goal was to fish for squid. The result was he sat with the pole in the water, I got a few pictures and we called it a night.

The second day we did more kayaking and once again I got a great workout! This time we went into a cave and it reminded us of the limestone caves in Phuket (minus the bats). Plus, this time we were navigating our own boats whereas in Thailand, they paddled us around. After a very long kayaking session, we ended up on a beach for lunch. The crew had set up tables (with cloth) and chairs for us and we had a barbeque lunch on the beach. It was great. We were served skewer after skewer of meat, fish, shrimp and finally a delicious rice dish presented in foil. I was impressed with every meal and dish at the effort and skill involved in cooking so elaborately on a boat and also on the beach.

We did some more shell collecting and spotted some crabs in the water and on the beach and then (as it seems is required on our adventures) Emily got a cut on her hand. Not sure if it was a shell or rock or coral, but she had a decent sized slice in her hand. Not deep though. The crew helped us clean it with fresh water and I pulled out my first aid kit and cleaned it again when we returned to the boat. She was fine. Claimed her hand was “broken” for a few hours and needed my help getting in and out of clothes, etc. Then she forgot about it entirely.

We returned to the boat and had some down time (read: nap time) and after a break, our guide was rounding us up for another adventure. We took the tender to an island and climbed thousands of steps up to visit a cave. This cave was previously occupied by fishermen. The tour company we used helped relocate the fishermen to a floating village and then took over the maintenance of the cave as a tourist destination. I think this was a good thing for the fishermen. The cave was cool but seemed a very difficult and dark place to live. The cave was full of stalactites and stalagmites. These are the formations of limestone come up from the floor of the cave and down from the ceiling of the cave. I remember learning about these in grade school. It was quite amazing to see them in different parts of the world. We learned that people come to the caves and cut the stalactites and stalagmites for sale. We saw evidence of this in the cave we visited.

We did a final kayaking trip after the cave and my arms were burning. This was the third day of paddling and the water was a bit rougher (just a bit) and the current was a bit stronger. We left the kayaks on the beach, where the company stores them for the next tour group, and headed back to the boat.
On the last day, we woke up early and had the same breakfast as the previous day. Breakfast was the least spectacular meal with an egg each and some really greasy bacon with white toast. My bacon was donated to the men at the table as was the kids’ bacon.

After breakfast, we went to visit a floating fishing village. The tour company helps this village and by bringing tourists, they also help bring income to the village. We were taken around by bamboo boats and offered conical hats to shield us from the sun as we were rowed past floating houses and fishing boats until we reached the tourist area with the village school. The kids were adorable and we saw the small school which was basically a one room school house for the children in the village. We spent some time at the tourist area where they had fish you could feed as well as some gift shops located next to the school. We made a donation to the school.

I chatted with the interpreter who worked in the tourist area. He said he’d lived in the area for forty years and he taught English at the school and helped the local people speak with the tourists. He told me it was his dream to come to the United States. I said it was my dream to visit Vietnam. He said my dream had come true and I replied I hoped his would too. I felt overly fortunate and slightly voyeuristic observing these people living on the water and attempting to educate their children. The interpreter said the school had about twenty five children and three teachers. He said as they expand the school, they will offer classes to the adults. He explained that many of the adults are illiterate since they have been fishing for generations and education was not available or particularly valued in the community. Hopefully, that will change for future generations. It seemed like a very difficult life, but the people we met were extremely friendly and welcoming.

We returned to our boat for a quick swim in the rain (our first rain on the trip) and after fighting the current for a solid 15 minutes, we determined it was too much work and boarded the boat. We had a final lunch before returning to land. The trip was a wonderful experience for us. Another page in the memory book that is our Asian adventure. I am grateful we had this opportunity as a family.
Final Vietnam blog will follow after our return home tonight. We are currently in Hoi An, which is a small town near Da Nang (south of Hanoi). We have had a quick but lovely 2 days here and leave tonight to fly back to Hanoi and then on to Shanghai on a wicked 1am flight. The price of budget family adventure travel. Well worth it in my opinion.

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Photos

taking a dip
salt water (and vests) really do help you float

the cabin
where I literally got cabin fever (due to heat)

Comments

[Emily]

Fantastic!
Suzanne! This sounds like you guys had an amazing trip on Ha Long! Just looking at all your great pics makes me wish we could go back. I think we got lucky though, b/c we are hearing stories about pretty bad weather blowing north up to Hanoi. So glad to have met you! I hope you got back to Shanghai safe and sound. Best, Emily Rauch